Invisible Fences: Prose Poetry as a Genre in French and American LiteratureU of Nebraska Press, 2000 M01 1 - 298 pages For all its recent popularity among poets and critics, prose poetry continues to raise more questions than it answers. How have prose poems been identified as such, and why have similar works been excluded from the genre? What happens when we read a work as a prose poem? How have prose genres such as the novel affected prose poetry and modern poetry in general? In Invisible Fences Steven Monte places prose poetry in historical and theoretical perspective by comparing its development in the French and American literary traditions. In spite of its apparent formal freedom, prose poetry is constrained by specific historical circumstances and is constantly engaged in border disputes with neighboring prose and poetic genres. Monte illuminates these constraints through an examination of works that have influenced the development of the prose poem as well as through a discussion of genre theory and detailed readings of poems ranging from Charles Baudelaire's "La Solitude" to John Ashbery's "The System." Monte explores the ways in which literary-historical narratives affect interpretation: why, for example, prose poetry tends to be seen as a revolutionary genre and how this perspective influences readings of individual works. The American poets he discusses include Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Carlos Williams, T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, and Ashbery; the French poets range from Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and Stephane Mallarmä to Max Jacob. In exploring prose poetry as a genre, Invisible Fences offers new perspectives not only on modern poetry, but also on genre itself, challenging current theories of genre with a test case that asks for yet eludes definition. |
Contents
of Genre | 15 |
A Wide Field of Prose | 39 |
Poetry in a Prosaic World | 64 |
The Makings of a Genre | 88 |
The Emergence | 117 |
The Idea of an American | 134 |
Prose Poem Take Two | 153 |
Negative Dialectics | 181 |
Other editions - View all
Invisible Fences: Prose Poetry as a Genre in French and American Literature Steven Monte No preview available - 2000 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic American prose poem anthologies approach arguably argues argument Ashbery's Baudelaire Baudelaire's Bernard Bertrand Chapelan's chapter complètes context critics Decaunes dialectical discussion Eliot English especially example Fishelov Fleurs formal Fowler free verse French Gâteau des rois genre theory Gertrude Stein Hejinian Hugo idea important interpretive framework Interview John Ashbery John Shoptaw Jules Janin Kinds of Literature Kora in Hell label language Lautréamont literary history literary kinds literary-historical long poem lyric Mallarmé meditation mode modern modernist narrative narrator negative nineteenth century notion nouns novel Œuvres paragraph passage perhaps perspective Petits Poëmes phrase poem's poème en prose poésie Poet's Prose poetic poetry in prose poets postmodern prose poetry published question reader rhetorical Rimbaud Rooms Russell Edson Sainte-Beuve sense sentence Shoptaw Solitude sonnet Spirit Stein subversive suggests Tender Buttons term Three Poems Toklas tradition translations words writing written
References to this book
Essay and General Literature Index Minnie Earl Sears,Marian Shaw,Dorothy Herbert West No preview available - 2001 |